Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I’ll be honest about two things; first I’ve not played a Lego game in quite a long time. Nor have I seen the Force Awakens. I know right? It's bad. I remember playing the old Lego Star Wars game with my brother about ten years ago and loved it. But from that point I fell to the dark side. Call of Duty took over my life. But now my inner child has been repressed for a while and so, I will relish in the next instalment of the Lego gaming franchise.

The Force Awakens tells the story of Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron as they travel across the galaxy to help the Resistance find Luke Skywalker, the last known Jedi. But in their way is The First Order, the new antagonising force which has risen from the fallen Galactic Empire. They seek to destroy the New Republic and forever rid the universe of the Jedi. It’s up to our heroes and a cast of other colourful characters to stop The First Order and find Luke Skywalker.

The one big change I noticed right away is that Lego characters actually speak now and with the film’s actors such as John Boyega and Harrison Ford. I know this change has been around for a couple of games (I’m not totally clueless) but I like this change a lot. Previous games relied heavily on the emotions and antics of its characters to deliver the communication and humour. This did make it cute and charming but held it back on branching out the humour and story. But now, you can grasp the story more clearly and the serious moments feel more engaging. This is still a playful adaption which is light hearted and quirky but when it comes to the dramatic moments; there is a great sense of gravitas. I will admit that some of the voice overs felt as though they were ripped straight from the film, meaning it doesn’t sound right due to background noise.

As for the remainder of the sound design, it’s perfect. The soundtrack and sound effects remain truthful to the Star Wars franchise and John William’s scores are just wonderful to listen to throughout your adventure.

The gameplay is massively enjoyable for both kids and adults. There is a perfect blend of problem solving, combat and exploration. You travel to all the locations in the film and further, tackling both the main campaign and various side missions which aren’t seen in the main film (I believe). Each world holds great depth for an engaging sense of exploration, from finding collectable items, currency and unlockable content for the main game. Your journey for the campaign will be made of up problem solving and combat along with various diverse set pieces to break up the progression. It’s a beautifully structured game with interesting components balanced together to form interesting aspects of exploration and lateral thinking. It could be from setting up a trap to defeat an AT-AT, finding a way past a giant space squid or repairing the Millennium Falcon before blasting off into an epic space battle. There’s just so much fun and variation to be had in this game in or outside the main campaign.

The strangest addition I’ve seen were segments of cover based shooting. It’s not bad a thing at all; it just struck me as odd to see something like Gears of War aspect in a Lego game. But these moments actually work well as players will face opposing forces and larger obstacles such as turrets and AT-ATs with multiple methods of defeating them. It’s great fun as well to play with another player and thankfully there’s split screen for local multiplayer.

The main feature here is building items to solve problems. You’ll often have to destroy various objects to build other items to overcome a problem and there is also a great deal of choice and lateral thinking behind it. Most of the outcomes for what you make are pretty funny as well, keeping to the light hearted tone of the Lego series. It’s nice to have the choice to make either object from a choice given or to work out the right order in what object to make. This plays well for larger puzzles that require multiple items to be made in a certain order and particular character skills in-between to complete the task at hand. You will also encounter larger puzzles that require team work and certain skills from individual characters in order to complete them.

The only aspect I did find which let down the experience a little was the shallow impact of threat or defeat. No matter what, it’s extremely difficult to die and if you do, you would have to be one of the worst players imaginable. Not to be harsh but this game is pretty easy, in the sense of combat lacks that impact of tension or fear. I guess it’s not a major problem as the game makes up for it by having other elements pose the aspect of challenge.

But the strongest and most compelling aspect this game has overall is the replay-ability factor. There is a gigantic amount of content to unlock including new characters, new star-ships and cheats to use in the free play mode. This opens the possibility of going through the game again using new characters that can obtain hidden items with certain skills, fight in star battles as Tia-Fighters or Red Wings and playing through the game with disco light sabres is freaking hysterical. This game offers everything and more.

This is a no brainer, it’s a great game. I love it and it’s made me want to go out and take a look at other Lego games I’ve missed. But for now, this is a brilliant title with so many compelling and entertaining elements which will amuse younger and older gamers. A must buy for any Star Wars or Lego fan out there, or even if you not.

+ Awesome gameplay
+ Great amount of content and replay-ability
+ Awesome soundtrack
+ Fun for everyone

- Some minor issues with the voice overs
- No real impact of threat

An Xbox One copy of Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review